


Barbershop Duet

by SpiritusRex



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Gen, Post-Game, Trust, hair cutting, josh's lack of respect for personal space or boundaries, neku and josh dont know how to talk to each oTHER, spoilers if u havnt finished playing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 12:12:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12232575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiritusRex/pseuds/SpiritusRex
Summary: Neku's hair isn't bright orange naturally. He dyes it, of course.And now, after everything that's happened, he thinks he might need a new look.





	Barbershop Duet

Neku’s mirror in his bedroom was cracked.

He’d honestly forgotten that it was. The long, body length mirror hung over his closet door, and was cracked across its bottom from a time when Neku had shoved the closet door shut too quickly. The mirror had bounced and the bottom had simply cracked, easily, as if it had been a wooden popsicle stick that Neku had broken over his knee instead of simply jostling at the wrong angle.

Neku grimaced at the crack, but thankfully, the mirror was still usable from the knees up. In that moment, he didn’t need to know how his whole body looked, he just needed to know how one specific part of him looked.

Angling his head, Neku shoved his fingers into his hair. The orange strands were easily manipulated, washed of all the gel Neku usually pumped into it and missing the headphones that kept the spikes flat. He was easily able to part his own hair and get right down to the roots, which were exactly the problem.

At the angle he was looking, it was difficult to see the top of his head, but Neku could still see the pitch black natural color of his hair. It was difficult not to. It looked like an oil spill every place he parted his hair to look, the black swallowing up the artificial orange color that he loved so much.

He hadn’t re-bleached or re-dyed his hair since the Long Game, and it showed.

“Ugh,” Neku grumbled, dropping his hands, letting his hair flop into his face. He blew lightly at a bit that was tickling his nose until it wasn’t anymore.

It’d be a pain to bleach and re-dye all his hair so that it’d look even again, not to mention he wasn’t even sure he wanted it to stay as orange as it was. Something about looking in the mirror and seeing the same Neku with the same hairstyle that he had seen in the mirror before the Game unnerved him.

He straightened back up after a moment and roughly gripped at his hair again, pulling it this way and that. Maybe it would look better if he just cut it all off? Went back to letting his natural color grow out, and dropped the orange altogether?

A soft and steady beat, that at first Neku hadn’t noticed, suddenly grew and interrupted his thoughts, as Shibuya thudded it against Neku’s back when something - _someone_ \- was unfolded from the planes of the UG and into Neku’s room.

The element of surprise was lost as the city’s music bunched into the space, announcing the other person’s presence, but Neku would’ve been able to notice the way the atmosphere of the room shifted drastically to make space for the _Composer_ anyways _._ When Neku turned his head, there _he_ was, sitting on Neku’s bed comfortably and familiarly as if they were best friends.

As if the last time they’d seen each other they hadn’t been pointing guns at each other’s faces.

“Joshua…” Neku breathed, wide eyed, one hand still tangled in his own hair, unsure how to react, how to feel, what to say.

_Where have you been why didn’t you come why haven't I seen you why did you decide to-_

“Stay still.” Joshua said, ignoring all greetings, all pleasantries, ignoring every question that Neku was sure was written obviously on his face - he always had been told that he wore his heart on his sleeve. Joshua rose from his seat on the edge of Neku’s bed after he spoke. His form moved crookedly, unnaturally, yet somehow still with an otherworldly fluidity, as if this plane couldn’t accommodate the ways he wanted to move his body and was trying to overcompensate.

At the sound of Joshua’s command, Neku froze, and didn’t dare move an inch after. He had no idea if he would’ve been able to move had he wanted to, but... he found that he didn’t really want to. His mouth was as dry as if he’d just shoveled sand onto his tongue and was simply holding it in his mouth, even through his soft and shallow breaths, and his head turned until his eyes were locked on their own reflection. Deep blue, swirling with unknown emotions, but empty of fear.

He couldn’t see Joshua as he approached, but he felt it when Joshua arrived to him. Thin fingers, soft and cold, almost ghostly, pushed and threaded their way through Neku’s thick orange locks. They smoothed out the kinks that Neku’s rough handling had made.

It felt... kind of nice.

“My, you’ve really let this go.” Joshua hummed, his fingers scratching - a light pressure, a show of power - at Neku’s scalp and the dark black roots sprouting up from there. A shiver, forceful, pushed its way down Neku’s spine, but he kept himself still despite it. “Do you want me to help you re-dye it?”

“No,” Neku mumbled, feeling muted by something, and both frighteningly cold and comfortably warm at the same time. He could see himself in the mirror, swaying slightly, drifting with each rhythmic pull of Joshua’s fingers through his hair. Somehow, the sight didn’t worry him. “Was thinkin’ ‘bout letting it grow out. Lettin’ it be natural again.”

Joshua’s eyes were flat and catlike, the way they peered over Neku’s shoulder to stare into the mirror, “Hm.” He hummed, and tugged a bit, pulling Neku’s head into a tilt backwards. Neku didn’t even wince. His head fell back obligingly, as if he were drugged, to rest upon Joshua’s shoulder.

“I admit, seeing you with your natural hair color would be interesting.” Joshua said, one hand in Neku’s hair, the other holding him around his shoulders. “Are you going to cut it short to avoid having bright orange frosted tips while it grows?” Joshua laughed softly, “You’ll certainly look very different if you cut your hair though.”

Neku tried to shrug, but the hand on his shoulder held him fast. He shrugged the other shoulder awkwardly, almost hitting Joshua’s chin, “Dunno.”

“I could cut your hair for you.” There were suddenly scissors, open wide, held in front of Neku’s face. His eyes crossed as he traced a pale arm to a pale hand to the shining silver blades that definitely had not existed a split-second ago.

“Would ask Shiki to do it… if it had to be anyone.” Neku could feel some emotion coming back now, fighting through the cold that was sitting firmly on his chest. _Shibuya’s Composer_ had him leaning against his chest, Neku’s head resting on his shoulder as if Neku was a pacified pet.

He trusted Joshua, but that didn’t mean he’d forgotten what it felt like to have a bullet tear through his chest, break down his ribs, puncture his heart, _twice._

Squirming, Neku tried to regain some autonomy. He fought against whatever thrall Joshua had placed on him. Music, muffled and barely real, clashed discordantly with his own soul’s tune as he began to push back against it.

“Lemme go, Josh.” Neku tried to shrug Joshua’s hand off his arm. His head was still tilted back, but now Neku was keenly aware of how vulnerable his exposed neck was. In just a t-shirt and pajama shorts, he felt exposed. “Don’t… I don’t need your help.”

Joshua didn’t say anything. The scissors dropped from his hand and out of existence in a shift of reality and static that Neku was barely able to catch before they were gone. Joshua put his hand back in Neku’s hair, but he tilted Neku’s head back up instead of holding it down, as if fixing a toy he’d broken by returning the broken piece to its natural position.

How fitting.

“Don’t get all worked up now, Neku.” Joshua said softly, and that soothing numbness tried to push its way into Neku’s heart again. Neku could hear the music of Shibuya, of her Composer, swelling around him, holding onto him. “Can’t I offer my help in my _old partner’s_ time of need?”

Neku managed, finally, to pull himself away from the cold hands on his shoulder and in his hair. They fell like broken chains away from him, to dangle without purpose at Joshua’s sides. Then, Neku turned, feeling like he was turning through mud and water, so that he was facing Joshua and no longer staring into his own dull eyes in the mirror.

Joshua was smiling at him. Just like he was when...

Neku shivered, swallowed, steeled himself, “What do you _really_ want, Josh? Why are you _here?_ ”

_Why now?_

Slowly, metamorphizing with the utmost subtly that one might almost miss it, Joshua’s smile harshened at the edges. It became carved and forced, rather than soft with confidence and amusement.

“I don’t want anything.” He answered. A lie. Neku felt the notes of music pluck awkwardly in the air.

They stared at each other, neither of them wanting to break.

“Josh…”

“... Let me cut your hair, Neku.” Joshua said, face a solid rock of a mask, giving away nothing, but he spoke as if it pained him to admit his request, and also as if he desperately needed it. It was as much a surrender as he and all his pride were willing to give.

The music around Neku dropped genuinely into softer tones, begging to be trusted.

Neku sighed, his shoulders losing their tension, his body sagging. “... Fine…”

They moved to the bathroom a small space with a sink, toilet, and tub, all crowded close together. Neku sat down on the edge of the tub without ceremony, not even caring enough to take off his shirt so that hair wouldn’t get all over it.

Joshua’s hands, no longer playful as they had been before, went back to Neku’s hair. The scissors, pulled from static, existed again, held aloft in Joshua’s grip.

“If you make me look terrible,” Neku grumbled, closing his eyes, not wanting to see the delicate but dangerous scissors, or the hand that held them. “I’ll tell Shiki.”

Joshua laughed, and began to pull Neku’s hair back and up, combing through it with his fingers to get a feel for where it parted and for how it naturally fell, “She can’t do anything to me.”

“Mr. H, then.”

A beat, then Joshua chuckled, a bit lower, “He can’t either. But I see you know where my weak points are.”  

The first snip echoed, bouncing softly off the tile of the bathroom. Both Joshua and Neku fell quiet as Joshua worked. Neku could feel thick chunks of his own hair dropping onto his shoulders, floating down to his feet, drifting to rest at the bottom of the bathtub and on the floor just beyond the tub’s edge. Still, he didn’t open his eyes.

_I trust you._

Time passed in this silence, only the cool metal of the scissors occasionally coming close to his ear or forehead and the careful tugs of Joshua’s hand in his hair keeping Neku from completely zoning out. He breathed softly and evenly, calm, all throughout the process.

“Alright, all done.” Joshua said, after what felt like hours, taking his hands away and stepping back.

Carefully, hesitantly, as if stepping into a new world, Neku opened his eyes. He stood up and stretched as the very first thing, wanting to shake the feeling like he was made of wood. His legs and back ached more than he expected from sitting on the uncomfortable tub edge for so long.

“I think I did a fantastic job, honestly.” Joshua continued, hands free, scissors gone. When Neku looked at him, he had one arm crossed across his chest, the other arm bent with the elbow resting on the arm and his hand under his chin. “You don’t look like Neku anymore, can’t say I know how I feel about that, but I suppose that’s what you wanted, right?” His violet eyes were looking at him in a way that could be called _caringly_ ; a rare crack in Joshua’s mask. Neku couldn’t say he knew how to feel about _that._

He looked away from Joshua and focused instead on the ground by his feet, and stepped around piles of orange hair carefully as if he were stepping through a minefield. He honestly hadn’t even known he’d had _so much_ hair on his head. Neku’s head felt light with the loss of all that weight, and moving felt easy.

In the mirror, staring back at him, was someone new. Same eyes, same face, same name, but Neku’s long orange hair that he had loved to slick and style up into statement making spikes was gone. Instead, his hair was short and completely black, sticking out from his head in a choppy but stylish way. He tilted his own head back and forth, rotated it, tried to get a good look at every angle of it. The hair barely dusted the tops of his ears, and was cropped to the perfect length off the back of his neck.

It looked good.

“A new look for a new you.” Joshua said, softly and knowingly, his voice echoing hollowly around the room like the snipping of the scissors had.

“Joshua, thank y-”

When Neku turned around, Joshua was gone.

“You…”

The music of Shibuya faded with her Composer’s absence, and Neku was left, standing alone in his bathroom amongst the mess of an aftermath that the cutting of his hair had left behind. That Joshua had left behind.

Neku’s emotions rolled in his heart, and he ran a hand over his freshly cut head of hair again, feeling the shortened strands brush softly against his palm.

“... Goddamnit.”

**Author's Note:**

> idk what this is? idk what im doing? i just started thinkin about how neku definitely probably dyes his hair, and then this all spiraled from there. 
> 
> also shout out to my evil friend hannah for givin me the title idea
> 
> if ur out there lovin twewy in 2017 like i am, drop me a comment to let me know ur thoughts on this oneshot, and a kudos too if you liked it! <3


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